With sadness

[lostinfrance]

With sadness my ex wifes dog we owened for many years past away on Friday.While sorting out the garage on Sunday i came
across a lovely 15x10 framed print of Honey our dog.
That was taken 11 years ago on film,I wonder how many photos will be around on digital in 10-20 years time,most will never be printed or lost when the computer gives up or you (cant use that format anymore).If you use film and look after the negs or slides they will always be there,you can hold them ,see them not like a computer.
By all means use digital but please get you shots printed,rather look at a photo on the wall than a computer screen.


David

 

[s162216]

I think that sadly in the future there will be hugh lengths of time where there are no photographic records of it as the digital files have been lost through equipment/drive failure or the file format being obsolete and forgotten. Its already hard enough to view Kodak photo cd files from the early 90's as the format fell out of favour a decade ago and very few programs will open them.
Photos from the mid 1800's are still around and everyone until the late 90's - early 2000's have/would have packets or boxes of prints, negatives and slides of family events, holidays etc.

Nowadays the digital pictures just sit forgotten on a hard drive perhaps being occasionally found by accident almost like prints etc used to be but unfortunately all it takes is one hard drive failure or accidental deletion and their gone. You could argue the same could happen with prints etc, but at least their easier to preserve and less likely to be suddenly lost.

There is actually already a precedent, digitally shot motion picture films are usually burned to film with a film recorder to act as a master because it actually has been calculate to cost 1100% more to store digital masters correctly as tapes and drives can fail and require proper storage which is extremely expensive so as an insurance a film master is made as well which is cheaper to store and guaranteed to last longer.

I recorded the events of a 5 day cub scout camp in May/June last year on 3 films with a Spotmatic F and several lenses because in my experience, most of the digital shots of timeless events like that just end up forgotten on various hard drives and forgotten with nobody else seeing the results and the fun. Although the leadership were a little skeptical at first of why I would want to use film, in the end they loved it as all the parents and other cubs could view the prints and I actually did a print service for them so that the cubs/parents could buy prints that they wanted by me sending the negs off to the lab again. To my surprise it was actually quite popular and the group made a small profit. (The concept of film did cause some confusion with the cubs though at first as they wanted to see what I had taken immediately and none of them actually knew what film was, when I asked them how people took pictures before digital came they looked blank! I ended up having to explain film, developing, printing etc so they could understand!)

 

[lostinfrance]

Cheers for you time in your reply.I know what you mean,too easy to deleate a
shot,why not keep it and learn from your mistakes,not enougth/too much depth of feild,over /under exposed,with film it was expensive,not now
I used to sive though loads of slides/prints to see what were keepers,not now .

 

[mustanir]

In all honesty, I think that talk of file formats going obsolete and images not being able to be viewed is a bit misguided. We are at a stage where most photographers and systems (i.e. the Internet) will have final images saved as JPEG files, a format that is very well-documented and not overly complex.
Hardware failure is a much more likely reason for stuff to be lost.

 

[s162216]

In all honesty, I think that talk of file formats going obsolete and images not being able to be viewed is a bit misguided. We are at a stage where most photographers and systems (i.e. the Internet) will have final images saved as JPEG files, a format that is very well-documented and not overly complex.
Hardware failure is a much more likely reason for stuff to be lost.

What says thought that JPEG will be the standard in 20 years or so? There are already better alternatives to Jpegs with lossless compression for the same file size such as Jpeg2000 but low market adoption has so far limited their use outside the graphics and ultra high quality markets. That could potentially change in the next few years if something better comes along. There are already hundreds of file types from pre Windows 95 days that are obsolete and difficult to emulate/read so what says that Jpeg can't eventually become one of them?

 

[mustanir]

What says thought that JPEG will be the standard in 20 years or so? There are already better alternatives to Jpegs with lossless compression for the same file size such as Jpeg2000 but low market adoption has so far limited their use outside the graphics and ultra high quality markets. That could potentially change in the next few years if something better comes along. There are already hundreds of file types from pre Windows 95 days that are obsolete and difficult to emulate/read so what says that Jpeg can't eventually become one of them?

The fact that it's pretty ubiquitous. Also, any old format that really has gone obsolete and difficult to read that was once in wide use (I can't think of any) is well-documented enough that someone could come up with a reader if the demand for it existed. It is only proprietary formats that have not been widely adopted that run the risk of vanishing.

 

[freecom2]

We are at a stage where most photographers and systems (i.e. the Internet) will have final images saved as JPEG files, a format that is very well-documented and not overly complex.

Yes, we have mostly settled on JPEG - but JPEG is a lossy format, whereas negatives (and digital RAW files) are lossless. So the predominant picture format may be supported for a long time, but it isn't the absolute original image. And RAW files aren't all uniform either - Nikon NEF, Canon CR2 etc.

 

[clicknologicley]

(The concept of film did cause some confusion with the cubs though at first as they wanted to see what I had taken immediately and none of them actually knew what film was, when I asked them how people took pictures before digital came they looked blank! I ended up having to explain film, developing, printing etc so they could understand!)

I went into a branch of Jessops about 12 months ago and asked the 17/18 year old working behind the counter if they had any colour print film, I might aswell have been talking in some ancient forgotten language, he had'nt got a clue what I was on about, he fetched a older guy and he pulled out a box of about a dozen various films and said this is all we've got left, can't remember when we last sold any. Needless to say I did'nt buy any.

 

[Jared]

I was in my local and very freindly camera shop today dropping off a 120 Ilford BW film and the chap behind me was amazed that I was holding a 120 Ilford film, he proclaimed with great gusto that it'd had been years since he last saw one of those and did anyone actually still use them.

 

[Les Key]

I must admit I do print out some of my better pics, like a cupboard full some loose some framed plus albums.
There are however a lot of digital archive files and Im sure these will be continued.
Was very interesting to come across this

http://blackcountryhistory.org/collections/getrecord/GB146_PHS_2367/

It wa my Grandfathers garage taken in 1936 I have memories of going there as a child in the late 50's not always a pleasant visit as it included a trip to the dentist up the road. Lol
The actual building is no longer there but there is still a car sales business on same site now.

 

[simonw]

While sorting out the garage on Sunday i came
across a lovely 15x10 framed print of Honey our dog.
That was taken 11 years ago on film
By all means use digital but please get you shots printed,rather look at a photo on the wall than a computer screen.


David

So a 11 year old pic was in the garage presumably not been seen for some time, whereas all my digital pics are on my computer in front of me (and backed up several times).

I wonder which gets looked at more

 

[puggie]

tricky one I look at my film prints much more than my digital stuff on the computer. I think the issue is more archiving which I would say film is a more dependable stable medium than digital (the motion picture industry certainly thinks so, they archive all their digital releases on optical film). Where will your digital images be in 11-20-30-50+ years time.

 

[Flash In The Pan]

With sadness my ex wifes dog we owened for many years past away on Friday.While sorting out the garage on Sunday i came
across a lovely 15x10 framed print of Honey our dog.
That was taken 11 years ago on film,I wonder how many photos will be around on digital in 10-20 years time,most will never be printed or lost when the computer gives up or you (cant use that format anymore).If you use film and look after the negs or slides they will always be there,you can hold them ,see them not like a computer.
By all means use digital but please get you shots printed,rather look at a photo on the wall than a computer screen.


David

Conversely, look at the case of Jacques Lowe and his stash of 40,000 unique negatives from when he was JFK's photographer, stored away (safely) in a bank vault, at the World Trade Centre and lost forever......

 

[Sootchucker]

So sorry for your loss. We lost our beloved cocker spaniel on Sept 11th 2 years ago (what a day in more ways than one), and still remembered her on Sunday last on the 2nd anniversary. They very much become a part of your life and family and it hurts very badly when they go.

 

[FruitFlakes]

How about film negatives + high res digital backups stored in multiple locations and in a data cloud.

 

[Dermots Spirit]

With sadness my ex wifes dog we owened for many years past away on Friday.While sorting out the garage on Sunday i came
across a lovely 15x10 framed print of Honey our dog.
That was taken 11 years ago on film,I wonder how many photos will be around on digital in 10-20 years time,most will never be printed or lost when the computer gives up or you (cant use that format anymore).If you use film and look after the negs or slides they will always be there,you can hold them ,see them not like a computer.
By all means use digital but please get you shots printed,rather look at a photo on the wall than a computer screen.


David

Getting them stored or printed is the way to go , I lost the best part of 2000 photos last year when my desk top melted , luckily for me the best of what I had taken were stored in external folders & on disc .

I rarely have pics printed & what few i have are on my wall

 

[big soft moose]

conversely many of my and my sisters pictures from our childhood were at risk of loss due to being shot on cheap film which was going yellow - ive now rescued these by scanning therm and using photoshop to restore the colour etc

come to that a mate of mine lost all his prints when his house burned down - his digital file backups were safe on more than one virtual server

 

[flashp]

I agree with the point the OP made, but I think what will make the best of both is to scan film.

I posted the below in another thread here:

I had a letter published in Outdoor Photography a few years ago and won letter of the month. My point then was one regarding the archival quality/longevity (or not) of digital and how we risk becoming an un-recorded society in the way we used to. Pictures and negatives found in drawers 20 30 40 50 years later will be a thing of the past. I've just scanned and reprinted from glass plate negatives my late parents wedding pictures and others. Digital imaging made that possible so easily, but the value of film should not be overlooked on any account.

I regularly say to friends and relatives who have children growing up 'for goodness sake, invest a roll of film every now and then if you want to make sure record photos last a lifetime'. A great many of the photo taking public haven't considered archiving or experienced catastrophic hardware failures resulting in loss of valuable images. They will, and film will have it's day again.

I also have a colleague who believed his external 500GB external HDD to have failed. He had around 4000 photos on it, none of which were backed up, and most of these were of his young daughter growing up. To say he was beside himself would be understating his condition at the time. Between us we recovered the data, but he was petrified.

As an aside, imagine a timeline with the development and maturation of film versus digital. On that timeline in digital terms I would currently put us at 1940 maybe...what do you think?

 

[lostinfrance]

To ansaw simon w ,the print was on my wall for many years but having to start life after a devorce things changed,the dog didnt live here any more, the photo was only yesterday passed on to my ex wife who i still get on very well with,the photo gave her great comfort so there is your ansaw.